


The Supernova Scene

by orphan_account



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-17
Updated: 2015-06-17
Packaged: 2018-04-04 19:34:13
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4150176
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The YouTube thing is Taylor’s idea. </p><p>A YouTube stars AU.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Supernova Scene

**Author's Note:**

  * For [maunnier](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=maunnier).



> Oof, this thing. I'm so sorry, it could be so much better and will hopefully have some sequels that will MAKE it better but it kept going in places I never intended and... *hands* fic. Weird, right? Anyway, I hope you enjoy anyway, maunnier. 
> 
> \- the title is from Video Killed the Radio Star (HAHA GET IT, okay...)  
> \- I set this mostly in Philadelphia and New York. Because these are places I know.  
> \- eternal love and thanks to eyeonthesparrow for cheerleading and beta-ing and often just yelling at me to get writing done. Bless. <3

The YouTube thing is Taylor’s idea. Sid never understood the appeal of social media. He was never one to inform god-knows-who about god-knows-what at any given moment, never felt a need to unburden himself to anonymous strangers on the internet.

Taylor can be pretty persistent, though. She’s persistent and enthusiastic and a Marketing major who packages the whole thing as a neat way to sell the gym. She doesn’t even really need to convince Sid because she wins over Flower and Tanger almost immediately. Sid sees the tide turn against him and wants to protest, but the three of them—Sid, Tanger, Flower—are all equal part owners in the gym. Sid is just plain out numbered.

The four of them are crammed into the office on the second floor that they all call an office but really just houses a flimsy IKEA desk, several chairs, a large yoga ball, and several changes of clothes for all of them. One thing Sid never anticipated about owning a gym and working at a gym was how often he’d be changing outfits during the day. 

Sid watches Taylor set up her laptop and a small camera and can’t help but let out a soft groan.

“Why does it have to be me on camera, though?” 

Taylor doesn’t even bother looking away from whatever she’s doing on her computer to answer him. “Because you’re the one with the most personal training hours.”

“And you’re prettiest,” Flower offers. He’s sitting on the yoga ball and looking positively gleeful at the idea of shoving Sid in front of a camera. 

“Tanger’s pretty,” Sid says. 

“Thank you,” Tanger says. “But I also have an accent. We need to go as white bread as possible with this.”

“Right,” Taylor says as Sid squawks, “white bread?” 

“It just means you’re wholesome,” Flower says.

“And boring,” Tanger adds. 

Sid crosses his arms in front of his chest and reminds himself that it would be horribly inappropriate and unprofessional to march out of the room in a huff, kicking Flower’s yoga ball out from underneath him as he went. Horrible. No good. 

He really wants to, though. 

 

So the whole thing is Taylor’s idea and Sid doesn’t think much of it at first. By the time he’s forced to accept that it is a thing that is very much happening, Sid has compartmentalized it into just another thing they’re doing to promote the gym. Kind of like the time Flower dressed up as a hot dog and gave away day passes. 

“Hopefully this works better though,” Flower says. 

“You gave away all the passes,” Sid points out. 

“Yeah but then that high school kid kicking me in the nads,” Flower says.

Sid blinks at him. “Yeah, hopefully this works better.”

They get started with very little fanfare, just a few videos that they tell people about through the gym’s facebook or after classes. The number of subscribers creeps up slow and steady. Sid doesn’t know much about what’s good and what’s not when it comes to that kind of thing, but he thinks it’s a pretty fair amount of people checking them out. He’s pleased. 

Then they release the third video and their subscriber numbers spike. Taylor loses her shit and Tanger walks out grinning for a while and Sid is just confused. He can’t for the life of him figure out why the third video caused such an uproar. It’s just like all the other videos: Sid demonstrates some exercises around a common theme, then answers some health related questions. 

“It’s your charming personality,” Tanger says. 

“What,” Sid drones. 

Tanger looks for a moment like he wants to take the weight he’s lifting and smash it into his own face. Flower peers around him and squints at Sid before he announces, “I think it’s the eyes. They’re very soulful eyes.”

“This is weird,” Sid decides and walks away to prep the main gym for his afternoon yoga class. 

Honestly, Sid kind of expects the hype to die down after that. People get bored. There’s a new viral video every half a second, right? So there’s got to be another five million guys who own gyms making fitness videos and any second they’ll be way more popular than Sid. 

Except that’s not quite how it goes. 

 

“We have a waitlist,” Flower tells him. Flower’s eyes are the size of dinner plates and he just interrupted Sid’s nine am spin class to drag Sid off the stationary bike and out into the hall to delivery this news. 

“A waitlist for…what.” Sid can’t think of anything. “Is this about the extra outlets in the locker room? They said they’d be out next week, they can’t put us on a waitlist. Do electricians even HAVE waitlists?”

“No, but we do,” Flower says. 

Sid’s confused. “What?”

Flower shoves a piece of paper in front of Sid’s face so hard he practically forces Sid to eat it. “We have a waitlist,” Flower says again. “For almost every class we have at this gym.”

Sid snatches the paper and actually looks at it. A waitlist. Never ever, since they bought this stupid ‘once was a warehouse for god knows what’ in Fishtown and turned it into a gym did they ever have a waitlist for a class. 

“Holy shit,” Sid says. 

“We need to hire more people,” Flower says, and then, like he’s finally realized they can afford to do that, “we need to hire MORE PEOPLE.”

“Holy shit,” Sid says again.

 

So, Sid is maybe possibly sort of a YouTube star. It’s weird. An eldery lady in the grocery story actually grabs his butt. People have no boundaries. It’s strange. Sid likes to think of himself as a guy who can roll with the punches—and this is usually when Taylor laughs so hard she turns red—but Sid really does think that and so, he adapts. He learns how to accept strang compliments from random people. He learns how to take photos with fans in ways that won’t be picked apart in the comments section of his videos later. He learns not to read the comments section EVER, and to leave filtering anything innapropriate or weird to Tanger, who gets a perverse sort of joy out of obliterating skeeves and idiots. 

It’s not too bad. 

Then he ends up on some list. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he tells Taylor. She’d practically knocked the office door of its hinges when she’d burst in a minute ago, frantic and excited. 

Taylor shakes her head at him, her usual “I despair of you” move Sid is seeing more and more of lately and walks around his desk, shoving him away from his own keyboard. 

“You’re on a Buzzfeed listicle,” Taylor says again, and this time she has a website loaded she points to. 

“Okay,” Sid says. That doesn’t actually clear anything up for him. “What’s a listicle?”

“It’s a thing, Sid,” Taylor says, exasperated. “An internet thing. The important part is they like to list cool things and those things often get lots of attention and you made their list of kid friendly YouTube channels.”

Taylor moves out of the way and Sid pulls himself up in front of his computer. Sure enough, there he is, number three, and deemed kid friendly for a series of videos they did on easy ways to introduce regular exercise to your kid’s routines. 

“That’s cool,” Sid says finally. It seems to be enough to satisfy Taylor because she just makes noise about letting Tanger and Flower know and blows out of the office like the enthusiasm-tornado she is. 

Sid watches her go and wonders if his door will ever be the same again before refocusing his attention on the Buzzfeed list. Some of the other channels on the list are pretty cool. Sid never spends a lot of time on YouTube, really, but he spends some time now checking out the videos featured by Buzzfeed on their list. He watches a couple minutes of a guy who makes up funny songs for kids and a girl who tells elaborate stories accompanied with homemade hand puppets. It’s pretty cool. 

Then he finds the sewing guy. Designer guy? Sid doesn’t even know. He only pressed play on the embedded video because the still preview photo was of this impossibly tall dude with a wide smile holding out a dress to a happy six year old. It just…it was cute. 

The video’s a tutorial about turning old adult-sized t-shirts into tunics or dresses for kids. The tall guy speaks slowly and with a thick Russian accent, trading jokes with the little girl working with him at the long table. She’s clearly standing on a footstool and looks happy to be there, handing the tall guy—Geno, she calls him Geno—whatever he needs as he works on the dress. 

At the end Geno’s managed to turn this baggy Rush t-shirt into a cute dress for the girl, who pulls it on over her t-shirt and leggings, beaming. 

“What you think?” Geno looks at the girl and Sid is smiling, oh god, why is he smiling so hard at this?

“It needs accessories,” the girl says seriously and Geno laughs, hard and loud, and the video ends.

Sid plays it another two times before he realizes he might be in trouble. 

 

Sid might have a little, very tiny, super small, internet crush. He watches every video on Geno’s YouTube channel—some, more than once—but that’s fine. It’s totally fine. Sid has it totally under wraps. 

Until he’s filming a new segment for his own YouTube channel a couple days later. Tanger’s helping out Taylor, flipping through questions submitted by viewers. Tanger tended to wedge himself into things as Taylor’s helper on YouTube stuff more often than not. And, well, he does have a couple thousand followers on instagram. The parody account Flower set up for Tanger’s hair only ever managed to get twenty or so.

“We can’t do this one,” Tanger says. 

“Is it about Sid’s skin care routine again?” Taylor is laughing when she asks but Sid just winces. That had been a little too Silence of the Lambs like for his comfort level.

“No, nothing that skin-peely,” Tanger says. “Just asking if Sid has any of his own favorite YouTube stars.”

Taylor scoffs. “Sid doesn’t watch—“ She looks at Sid and her eyes narrow. “Wait. Do you?”

“What?”

“Do you have favorite YouTube stars?”

“I have one,” Sid says, because it’s true, he doesn’t have a dozen or anything, just Geno. 

“Okay,” Tanger says, clearly trying and failing to keep the surprise and curiosity out of his voice. “You can answer the question then.”

“I don’t have to,” Sid says. Now that he’s thought about it he’d rather not answer the question, but Tanger and Taylor are shaking their heads in eerie unison. 

“No, no, you’ll answer,” Tanger chirps and moves along swiftly to the next question under consideration. 

Sid regrets saying anything. He really regrets it when the finished video goes up and all their fans online flood the comments sections with OMG and OTP and other three letter combinations he doesn’t understand. 

“This is a bit much,” he says after one particularly industrious fan makes a video splicing together Sid and Geno’s individual YouTube videos and set the whole thing to the tune of Wind Beneath My Wings.

“This is the greatest,” Tanger says, cackling. Sid isn’t entirely sure Tanger isn’t the one who made the video. 

“I’m going to schedule you an extra Zumba class,” Sid threatens. 

“You were going to do that anyway, you and Flower have no rhythm,” Tanger says, rolling his eyes. And yeah, okay, that’s true. They tried to get Flower to teach the Zumba class and it had ended in flailing limbs and one broken mirror. 

“You know,” Tanger says, trying very hard to sound nonchalant. Sid keeps refilling bottles of disinfectant spray and tries very hard to brace himself for whatever is coming next. “He mentioned you on twitter.”

“Who mentioned me on twitter,” Sid says, but he thinks he already knows the answer to that question. 

Tanger holds his phone out towards Sid and wiggles it a bit as he sings, “your little YouTube crush.”

Sid snatches up Tanger’s phone, ignores Tanger’s squawk of protest, and squints down at he screen. 

Someone, presumably a fan of both Sid and Geno, had tweeted at Geno, “oh my god, did you see @penguinsgym said you’re his favorite Youtuber?” 

Geno’s response was a series of eyeless smiley faces and, “yes! Always nice when pretty man say you’re favorite” followed by some enthusiastic emojis. 

“He thinks you’re pretty, Sid,” Tanger says as Sid scrolls through the responses from fans—more OMGs and OTPs and every version of the heart emoji. 

Sid hands Tanger his phone back and just says, “huh.”

“Huh? Just huh?”

Sid stares extra hard at the newest empty disinfectant bottle. “Yes.”

“So I shouldn’t give him your number, then?”

Sid’s hand slips and the disinfectant bottle he was uncapping skids across the table where it knocks over the other, waiting, empty bottles and they all tumble to the floor. 

“Huh,” Tanger says. 

Sid ignores the mess he made, he’ll deal with it later, and whirls around to face Tanger. “He wants my number?”

“Yeah he followed us on twitter and DMed asking about it,” Tanger says. Tanger mostly manages the twitter account, with some help from Taylor. The account is for the gym and the Youtube account but people mostly confuse it for being Sid and neither Tanger nor Taylor has worked to correct that assumption, claiming it’s good for business. 

“Did you want me to give it to him?”

Sid chews on his bottom lip and thinks. “I don’t know,” he says.

Tanger shrugs. “You can think about it some more if you want. Totally up to you.”

“Right,” Sid says. He starts collecting the spilled bottles and before he can think about it too hard, he says, “give him my number.”

“You sure?”

No, Sid isn’t sure at all, but he says, “yes” and punctuates it by throwing a bottle at Tanger. 

 

Sid doesn’t get a chance to look at his phone until the end of the day. He usually keeps it stashed in the office during the day so as not to get too distracted while he’s working. He has a few chances to run to the office between classes and physical training appointments but opts instead to do some maintenance around the main gym floor or bother Flower rather than look at his phone. If Geno texts him Sid thinks that’ll be it, Sid’s brain will be with that message and his phone for the rest of the day and he really can’t afford that with all the work he has scheduled. He gets through his intermediate yoga and his beginner Pilates and an exhausting PT session with a local high school kid who is really a very good kid but who needs to stop using google as a nutritionist. 

“So I won’t gain muscle weight by drinking wheat grass?”

“No,” Sid says. 

“What about kale?”

Sid changes the conversation to focus on lean protein before his head explodes. Thankfully after that he has Mrs. Staal, Sid’s friend Jordy’s mom, and she mostly just wants to make idle slightly gossipy chit chat about the new girl Jordy is dating while doing some manageable lifting for a woman her age. 

After he walks Mrs. Staal to the front door of the gym, and gets a very mom-appropriate pat on the cheek for it, Sid escapes to the office. It’s empty—Flower in his regular late afternoon spinning class and Tanger off running errands. Sid takes advantage of the empty office and changes right there instead of escaping to the locker room. Only after he’s in his jeans and a sweatshirt does he dig into his backpack and pull out his phone. 

He has a few messages. A couple from Taylor whining about her Art and the Moving Image professor, a photo from Tanger of an orange he thought look particularly sad, and a text from an unknown number. It starts with the same eyeless smiles and then says, “twitter guy give me number, hope is okay. Hi!”

It’s weird for just a couple words to seem charming. But Sid is thoroughly charmed. He stutters back a response, something about how it’s totally okay that Geno has Sid’s number, and Sid hopes it’s okay he mentioned being a fan of Geno’s channel. 

He gets back, “is okay! Like I say on twitter, always nice when people say nice things. Most fans have kids, though.”

“Oh jeez,” Sid says. It must be pretty transparent that Sid watched the videos mostly to eye up Geno. 

“I have friends with kids,” Sid sends, but adds a question mark to the end because he may as well cop to the fact that he’s flailing around for excuses now. 

Geno sends back a couple rows of “hahaha”s and as Sid packs his stuff up to go home he finds he can’t stop smiling. 

 

A depressing amount of Sid’s life has boiled down lately to his sister saying things he doesn’t understand and her rolling her eyes at him. 

“Lululemon wants you to be a brand ambassador for them,” Taylor says. “It’s like…a sponsorship, kinda.”

“Weird,” Sid says, like it’s a stamp he uses now to label everything related to the YouTube channel. Weird, weird, weird—all of it is weird. 

“They’ll send you some free shit, you’ll wear it in their videos, blah, blah.” Taylor waves her hand at him as she reads from an email. “And they want you to do a special video, wearing their gear, on a topic related to their brand.”

“That could be practically anything,” Sid says. 

“Yeah but I think they’re doing some kind of specific push for outdoor exercising ahead of the shift in weather,” Taylor says. 

Sid does a mental index of the sorta circuits he works through with some personal training clients in the summer. “Yeah, I could come up with something.”

“They want you to shoot it in New York,” Taylor says. 

“New York?”

“Yeah, at the YouTube studio,” Taylor says and Sid remembers now, the studio that channels and users with a certain number of subscribers can access. It had looked like a pretty nice set up based off of the photos online. Sid just never had a reason to use that particular perk, what with Taylor and Tanger taking care of most of the technical work right at home in Philly. 

“Alright, I guess we can do that.” He pulls out his phone, fully intending to pull up his calendar app so he can find a few days he could potentially go to New York. But there’s a new message from Geno on the screen, some good natured chirping about hockey—Sid had admitted his never-ending love for the sport and fondness for the Habs and the Pens in particular and Geno had sent back the text version of scoffing and launched into a diatribe about the wonders of the New York Islanders. Because Geno lives in New York. 

Sid should be sorting through his calendar but instead he opens Geno’s message and replies, “I may be in New York in a couple weeks. Work stuff.”

He can hear Taylor chatting about lululemon, her contacts there, something about school, but Sid just hums in response, his eyes glued to his phone, waiting for Geno’s response. He doesn’t have to wait very long. 

“Sid! Come visit?! Much excite, you have come see me. I’m take you to favorite diner maybe convince you Islanders hockey best.” 

Sid lets out breathless laugh and shoots back a, “yeah, good luck with that” and throws in a smiley emoji just because. 

“Alright,” he says to Taylor, interrupting her diatribe on integrated marketing. “When can we make this happen?” Sid thinks to himself that the sooner they can do it, the better. 

 

Taylor takes charge, hashing out the details with the lululemon people. After all this, the Youtube channel taking off, the day to day management of the social feeds, handling marketing agreements with other companies, Sid has to say that Taylor is in the right line of work.

“How nice of you to notice,” Taylor says when Sid admits as much to her out loud. They’re killing time, waiting for the train that will take them to New York. 

“I was being nice,” Sid says and jabs at her ankle with his shoe. 

Taylor snorts and looks away from her phone long enough to give him a small smile. “You of all people should know that no one in this family knows how to accept direct compliments. We’re used to the affectionate grunt of approval and then—“

“Keep your head down, keep up the good work,” Sid finishes with her. It was their father’s favorite truism while they were growing up. He always let them enjoy an accomplishment, but always stressed that after that, it was back to the grind—no risk of an over inflated ego, there.

“Alright,” Sid says. “Next time I’ll just huff and punch you in the shoulder.”

“I’d appreciate it,” Taylor says, giggling. 

They manage to board the train and get into New Jersey before Taylor fixes him with a determined look and says, “Are you meeting him in New York?”

Sid opts to play stupid. “Who?”

Taylor rolls her eyes. “Fine. If you want to fake me out like that I can just make sure our lululemon shoot goes EXTRA long—“

“Okay, yes,” Sid says. “Yes. I’m meeting him.”

“It’s Geno, right?” Taylor grins. “The guy with the sewing channel.”

Sid hums and thumbs ideally at the seam of his jeans. He’s not sure what to call Geno, really. He supposes without a better title, ‘guy with the sewing channel’ is the best they’re gonna do. 

“I’ll take that as a yes,” Taylor says. “When are you meeting him?”

“Whenever we’re done,” Sid says. He and Geno had talked the subject to death in the days leading up to the trip. Sid was sure his excitement was obvious. Even over text. But it was okay. Judging by the increase in eyeless smiles and exclamation points, Geno was just as excited. 

“I’ll try and get us out early,” Taylor says. 

“You’re not the worst,” Sid says, remembering their earlier agreement to resist compliments.  
¬¬  
“Right back atcha,” Taylor says.

 

The actual shoot isn’t nearly as bad as Sid thought it would be. Everyone from lululemon is beaming and chirping positive things—exuding ‘we’re so happy to be here’ like at any moment Sid might change his mind and make a run for it. Sid supposes they’re used to working with more difficult personalities. They’re all a bit much, but luckily Taylor handles most of their enthusiastic questions and tampering good naturedly. Sid has a whole new wardrobe and a pair of pants that are a bit snug if you ask him, but just right, if the wide eyed, blushing, production assistant from lululemon is to be believed. 

The YouTube offices are very nice, and clearly everyone there is used to this kind of thing and hardly gives Sid and his entourage—oh jeez, he has an entourage—a second glance. 

They manage to get the shoot moving along at a decent clip. 

“He hardly ever has to do another take,” one of the lululemon guys says. He and a few of the other marketing personnel all swivel around to stare at Sid like he’s some kind of alien. 

Sid, not sure what the proper response here is, just shrugs and says, “I mean. Hit your mark, say what you have to, look at the right camera, done.”

He’s worried for a moment he may have offended them, surely everyone is supposed to pretend this sorta thing is much harder than it is. But instead the marketing guy just turns to Taylor and says, “we love him.”

“Thanks,” Taylor chirps. “We think he’s pretty okay too.”

Taylor keeps her promise in the end and they manage to get done early. The lululemon guys make noise about taking Sid out to dinner, wining and dining him. Sid plasters on his best “aw shucks” smile while politely declining, feigning exhaustion. 

“Nicely played,” Taylor says once they’ve dispatched with the scary marketing people. “So, where are you meeting Geno?”

“His neighborhood,” Sid says. “Park Slope.” Sid has to get on the subway to get there and Geno had made noise about picking Sid up in Manhattan, which was sweet but also stupid since Sid was a grown man perfectly capable of taking the subway. “We’re going to dinner at some little sushi place.”

Taylor smiles. “Sounds nice.”

“You’ll be okay?” Sid is only now realizing he’s kind of abandoning Taylor for the evening in New York and he’s possibly maybe not such a great brother right now. 

“I’m fine,” Taylor says, rolling her eyes. “You know Annie from high school? She goes to NYU. She got us student rush tickets to Kinky Boots. I might just crash at her dorm after.”

“I’m going to table the Kinky Boots explanation,” Sid says. “Just, you know, have fun, be careful, and call me if you need anything. You can always go back to the hotel, too. You have a key?”

“Yes, now go,” Taylor says, flapping a hand at Sid. “You mustn’t keep your sewing guy waiting.”

“Right, okay,” Sid says and with a final frantic run of his fingers through his hair he grabs his jacket and leaves. 

He hadn’t given much thought to his outfit and doesn’t think to worry about it until he’s on the train, under the water, making his way from Manhattan to Brooklyn. He’s wearing one of the polo shirts the lululemon people gave him; it’s plain, black with just a little white piping at the collar. He’d at least changed out of the tight work out pants and back into the dark wash pair of jeans Tanger had talked him into the last time they went shopping together. Sid much preferred shopping with Flower—he rolled around in the clearance rack at an athletic store and maybe also a Disney store and was done with it. Tanger clucked his tongue and made noises about pleats. Still, he guessed it paid off in these pants, they do look good on him, and they’re the best, probably, to wear to meet Geno. 

Sid gets off at the stop Geno had instructed him to. He walks up some stairs and ends up above ground, surrounded by well-groomed trees and old brick townhouses. He’s pulling out his phone to get the name of the sushi place so he can figure out which direction he’s supposed to head in when he hears someone call his name. 

He’s not sure that’s what’s actually happening at first until he hears his name again, closer this time, from just behind him. Sid turns and has to tilt his head up a bit and, whoa, okay, that’s Geno. 

He’s smiling at him lopsidedly, one hand smashed into the front of his light washed jeans pocket, the other giving an over enthusiastic wave to Sid, merely a foot or two in front of him. Geno’s wearing a dark blazer, the sleeves rolled up to reveal tan, wide forearms adorned here and there with what are clearly home made bracelets, plastic and bits of yarn braided together. The shirt he has underneath the blazer is a simple Henley, but none of the buttons are done up at the top, and Sid wonders if Geno just couldn’t be bothered, or if he knows the absolutely devastating effect seeing that much of Geno’s collar bone has on the layman—on Sid. 

“Hi,” Sid finally manages to croak out. “I thought we were meeting at the restaurant.”

Geno scrunches his whole face up like, ew, and then chews on his lip before shrugging. “I’m not want to wait, you know? Too excite. Think maybe better I wait here.”

“Oh,” Sid says, and he flushes a bit at the idea that Geno just couldn’t wait to meet him. “Well then. Uh. Hi?”

Geno laughs and steps in close enough to take Sid’s hand. “Hi, Sidney,” Geno says. “Very nice to meet.”

Even though they met ages ago, through texts, Sid knows what Geno means. It’s really something else to be standing here in front of him. 

“Hi,” Sid says, laughing a bit at the end. “I’m…really glad to meet you.”

“Yes,” Geno says. Before Sid really knows what’s happening, Geno is pulling Sid into a hug. “I’m so glad.”

Sid swears he knows how to use his hands, his arms, but in that fraction of a moment, with Geno holding him, he forgets. He fumbles and shakes and finally settles, his one palm on Geno’s shoulder, the other at the small of his back. Geno, completely uninhibited, leans into Sid and Sid’s mind goes blank other than, “wow, he smells nice.”

“We should go to dinner,” Sid says after a moment. 

“Yes,” Geno says, and if he’s disappointed about Sid stepping out of their embrace, he doesn’t show it. “Best sushi in New York, I show you.”

“Best, huh?” Sid can’t help but sound dubious. 

“I’m never lie,” Geno says, blinking wide eyes at Sid and Sid just laughs and pushes at Geno, hopefully towards where the restaurant is. 

Sid’s not sure about the best sushi in New York, but it is pretty good. It helps that Geno seems to know the owners pretty well. Mr. Nakagata’s English is as broken as Geno’s, but that doesn’t seem to matter. And Mr. Nakagata’s daughter, Hildy, their waitress, listens to them both laugh and rolls her eyes accordingly with the sort of practice one only gets when her father regularly has one of his embarrassing friends over. 

“Is small neighborhood,” Geno says over edamame and carefully grilled octopus. “Especially if you own business in neighborhood, you know? Very easy get to know other people here, trade lots of advice, do lots of talking.”

“It sounds kinda nice,” Sid says, because it does, truly. 

Geno nods. “My mama, she own hemming, mending, laundry shop two blocks down, own it since I’m kid, you know? I grow up knowing other shop owners.”

“Your mother still there?”

“No,” Geno says, waving a hand. “She decide time to retire, move back to Russia for little bit, take care of her parents.”

“But you stayed.”

“Yes,” Geno says, smiling over his octopus. “I like it here, you know? I go to school just across river, come back, sew more to make extra money, no need to leave.”

Sid nods, like this makes sense, and it does. But at the same time while there was certainly no need to leave his town, there was a mad desire to do just that. “I kinda had to get out of Nova Scotia,” Sid says. 

“Too much ice,” Geno says, joking.

“Ha ha,” Sid says. “No, I don’t know. I guess after my knee blew out, after hockey was kind of…done. I just couldn’t stay anymore.”

Geno reaches across the table then to gently brush his fingers across the back of Sid’s hand. Sid takes it for the invitation that it is and turns his hand over, twines their fingers together. “All my hockey memories were there, you know?” Sid shakes his head. “I just couldn’t wake up and try to be…something else. Not there.”

Geno nods his head like he understands, or, even if he doesn’t, like he empathizes at least and that’s nice. That’s good. Sid can take that. 

“Why Philly though?” Geno asks with an air Sid is kind of used to hearing from people who settled in New York. 

“I got into Penn,” Sid says. “I thought at first maybe I’d do premed. Focus on sports medicine. But then I started classes and I don’t know, I realized I was way more interested in kinesiology. The kind of stuff it took to maintain a healthy body. So I refocused on that.” 

He’d met Flower freshman year and Flower had just stayed and stayed. Tanger had come in junior year and after that plans just sort of fell into place. Of course they’d open a gym. It never made sense after that to move back to Nova Scotia. He never anticipated Taylor following him to Penn, but that had been a welcome surprise. And Sid thinks privately it made his parents feel better too—that at least the two goobers were far away from home together. 

“You’re very good what you do,” Geno says as more sushi plates arrive. 

“Oh,” Sid says. “Thank you.” 

“You are,” Geno says, like he can see the small nagging bit of doubt in Sid’s eye. “I do that one video with my god daughter. She like very much. Very easy and she stay focused. Was good.”

Sid flushes and this time he smiles when he says, “thank you.”

“Welcome,” Geno says, matching Sid’s smile. 

“You’re, uh, you’re very good with her,” Sid says. “Your god daughter.”

“She’s best,” Geno says with such enthusiasm Sid worries for a moment Geno might knock over his water glass. “Most amazing kid. Always ask questions, come up with such funny stories.”

“Yeah.” Sid, thoroughly charmed and at a loss of what else to say, just shoves a piece of tuna roll in his mouth. 

“I start want to make clothes for everyone,” Geno says. “Start make kids clothes on accident. But kids more fun. Not afraid of color. Always so happy get new clothes.”

“Yeah I can see how that would be better,” Sid says. 

“Yes, and,” Geno’s grin twists into something impish. “All the mamas in Manhattan like spend money on best new fun clothes, you know?”

Sid laughs, imagining Geno selling polka dotted tutus to prim ladies from the Upper East Side wanting to appear hippie chic. “Yeah, I bet you do pretty well.”

“Do okay,” Geno says with a grin and a shrug that tells Sid he’s doing more than just okay. 

They finish up dinner and Geno suggests they go on a little walk of the neighborhood. Sid’s not sure if Geno planned for them to end up at a tiny ice cream shop or not, but when Sid sees the list of flavors available, he doesn’t really care. 

“Think maybe you like,” Geno says with the confidence of a man who’s been made aware how devastating Sid’s sweet tooth is. 

“You were right,” Sid says and Geno’s chest puffs up with pride at having guessed correctly. 

They each get a scoop of ice cream and pick a nearby bench to sit on and eat and watch sugared up kids run back and forth, weaving in and out of neighbors walking dogs and coming home from work. 

“This is a nice neighborhood you have here,” Sid admits. 

“Good,” Geno says. “I’m hoping you like.”

“Yeah?”

“Yes.” Geno has his spoon half hanging out of his mouth and he looks a bit ridiculous. “Hoping maybe you want come visit again.”

Sid, pleased, chews on his own plastic spoon a bit for a moment. “Visit the neighborhood again?” 

“Yes, maybe, sure, but me too, I’m think,” Geno says, elbowing Sid playfully in the side. 

“Uh, yeah,” Sid says, coughing a bit around his own awkwardness. “Yeah, that’d be nice.”

Geno grins at him, spoon and all and says, “good.”

They walk back towards the subway after that. Sid makes noise about being able to find his own way but doesn’t put up too much of a fight when Geno insists on seeing him back to the stop personally. There’s nothing rushing Sid back to Manhattan and his hotel. Taylor is probably still off with her friends and hopefully the lululemon people are somewhere toasting their success far away from Sid’s hotel room. But something feels right about ending the evening with Geno here, now. After a nice dinner and some ice cream and a tiny, overly sweet, neighborhood tour. To drag the evening out any further would risk pushing things to places Sid’s not sure he’s ready to go yet with Geno. He’d hate to ruin what turned out to be a pretty amazing day. Or date. If it even was one. 

“This was fun,” Sid says again as they reach the subway stop. 

“Yes,” Geno says. “Best date I think I’m have in long time.” And, well, that answers that. 

“I would like to come back,” Sid says, feeling suddenly brave. “And maybe you could come down to Philly? If you’d like.”

Geno nods and steps closer to a laughing Sid. “Yes,” Geno says. “Think that be nice.”

“Okay.” Sid takes Geno’s hand and squeezes gently. “I guess I’ll see you later.”

Geno nods and steps closer still before leaning in to press a soft kiss to Sid’s cheek. Sid’s breath catches a bit, and it’s a funny thing. Territory he’d long abandoned to elderly aunts and a friend pretending to be classy is made new and vital when Geno touches his mouth to it. 

“I’m text you,” Geno says softly as he pulls away. 

“You have my number,” Sid says, stupidly.

Geno just laughs and says, “yes.”


End file.
